


Falling For You

by mikkimouse



Series: Tumblr Fics [24]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas Lights, Fluff, Humor, Hurt!Stiles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 21:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5556560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse/pseuds/mikkimouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt from <a href="http://mad-madam-m.tumblr.com/post/133751261095/crossroadswrite-iamawere-blakesmilitia-im">this list</a>: i live below you and i was minding my own business watching the snowfall out the window WHEN I SAW A BODY FALL ARE YOU REALLY PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS LIGHTS NOW</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling For You

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr [here](http://12daysofsterek.tumblr.com/post/135581510314/falling-for-you) for the 12 Days of Sterek 2015!

Derek sighed and settled against the back of his couch, his living room lit only by two lamps and the electric fireplace his sister had given him as a housewarming gift. He'd rolled his eyes at first, but it was great at warming the apartment and made the whole room feel cozy. 

He pulled the giant fleece blanket off the back of the couch, took a sip of his hot chocolate, and set his book in his lap. He'd start reading in a minute, but right now, he was enjoying the sight of snow falling outside the window. The sky had been heavy and grey all day long, but it had only started snowing in earnest a few hours ago.

Derek tucked the blanket tighter around himself and relished the warmth of his mug. He was so glad he didn't have any plans to leave for the rest of the night or tomorrow. It was going to be—

_THUMP._

He jerked at the noise from his upstairs neighbor. What the—

" _FUCK!_ "

There was another thump, and then a _body_ fell past his front window, landing in the snow-covered hedges with a crash. 

Derek jumped to his feet and set his stuff on the coffee table, grabbing his coat and phone before bursting out of the front door. 

His upstairs neighbor lay splayed in the snow, feet still stuck in the hedge, groaning. 

Oh God. _Oh God_. Derek crouched beside him, phone open. "Are you hurt? Is anything broken? I'm calling nine-one-one." 

"Don't!" The guy winced; his face was mostly hidden under a hat and scarf. "Ugh, nothing's broken. I just... wind. Out of me." 

Derek shoved his hands in his pockets, but kept his hand around his phone. He looked up, and saw a string of Christmas lights winding around the railing of the balcony, up the side of the building to the roof, and finally _dangling_ off the roof.

He gaped at his neighbor. "You were putting up Christmas lights? In _this?_ "

The guy sat up and pulled his legs out of the bushes, wiping snow off himself. "No, I was practicing tightrope walking." 

Derek rolled his eyes. "Well, it looks like your technique leaves something to be desired." 

His neighbor barked a laugh and stood, then cursed and started to fall again. Derek lunged forward and grabbed him, holding him steady. 

"Thanks," the guy said. "I guess I must've twisted my ankle." 

"Hopefully that's all you did," Derek muttered. "Come on." 

He worked his arm around the guy's back and ushered him back inside, where it was warm and light and most importantly, not snowing. He shut his door firmly and shrugged out of his coat, and turned to help the guy out of his. 

His neighbor squeaked. Actually _squeaked_. "What are you doing?" 

Derek sighed and pointed to his couch. "You're going to take off your coat and sit on my couch, and I'm going to make sure your ankle isn't broken." 

"It's not _broken_ , it just hurts a little." 

Derek rolled his eyes to the heavens. "You can't even walk on it." 

The guy made an outraged noise. "I can so!" 

Derek just raised his eyebrows, waiting for the guy to try and put weight on it again. 

Glaring stubbornly from under his hat and scarf—all Derek could see was the _challenge accepted_ in his eyes—the guy put down his hurt leg. He immediately hissed and shifted all his weight back to his other leg. 

"Yeah, that's some excellent walking you're doing right now," Derek said dryly. 

"Shut up," the guy grumbled, but he took off his coat and handed it to Derek, and then unwound his scarf and pulled off his stocking hat. 

Derek almost choked. 

It was his _hot_ neighbor. 

He was tall and lanky, with messy brown hair wet from the snow and pale cheeks flushed pink with the cold, and a series of moles along his jaw. And now he was limping his way over to Derek's couch, cursing under his breath with each step. 

Derek had only seen the guy once before, two days after he'd moved in. Derek had been hauling a few more boxes in from his parents' house, and his neighbors had been sitting out on their balcony drinking beer in shorts and T-shirts despite the 40-degree weather. Derek had taken one look at the guy, with his ridiculous backwards baseball cap and his stupidly cute nose and the way he laughed with his entire body, and had developed a crush to rival any of those ones he'd had in high school. 

Which was idiotic, because he was pretty sure the guy was taken. Either that, or he and his roommate had no sense of personal boundaries whatsoever. 

His neighbor flopped onto his couch and propped his injured leg up on the coffee table. "Oh my God, dude, where did you even get this couch?" He ran his hands over the leather. "It's gorgeous. I could live here forever."

Derek ducked his head and went to grab the first aid kit. "I got it from a furniture store."

"Not from any furniture store I've ever been to." 

"That's because the dumpsters on Main Street don't count as furniture stores." 

The guy threw back his head and laughed. "See, I would be mad, except we have two desks and a coffee table that we rescued from that fate, so you aren't actually wrong." 

Derek shrugged, pretending that laugh hadn't made him tingle all over. He crouched in front of the guy and untied his shoe. 

"My name's Stiles, by the way," the guy said. "Since you're starting to undress me and all, I figured maybe we should be on a first-name basis."

Derek choked and his face heated, and he looked up just in time to see his neighbor— _Stiles_ , what the hell kind of a name was that?—wink exaggeratedly at him. He turned back to getting the shoe off without causing any undue pain. "Derek Hale." 

"Hale?" Stiles's amber eyes grew even wider, if that were possible. "Wait, you're the new deputy?" 

Derek nodded and finally wiggled Stiles's shoe off his foot, then gently rolled down his sock. "Yes?" 

"I'm, uh, Stiles Stilinski. My dad's the sheriff." 

Derek stopped and stared. _Shit._ He had a crush on his boss's son? "You're the sheriff's kid, and you stand out in blizzards trying to put Christmas lights up in the snow?" 

Stiles flailed at the window, where snow was still coming down. "It's not a _blizzard_ , God. It's just a little snow." 

"You fell off the balcony," Derek felt compelled to remind him.

Stiles scoffed. "I didn't break anything."

Derek sighed and went back to examining Stiles's ankle, squeezing the skin around it gently and looking for signs of a break. "Tell me if it hurts." 

"Uh," Stiles said, "a little, but not too bad." 

Derek racked his mind to think of something to talk about, because otherwise he was going to focus wholly on the fact that he was holding Stiles's foot in his hands. "Why the hell were you putting up Christmas lights in this, anyway?" 

"Um, _because_ they're Christmas lights?" Stiles said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I would have had them up last week, but I've been working all week and I've been too tired to do it. Today's my only day off. I wouldn't be able to have them up for another week at _least_ if I didn't do it today!" 

Derek raised his eyebrows. "And that's worth risking your neck?" 

"Uh, of course? Did you not hear me about the _Christmas lights?_ " Stiles flailed again, and Derek had to grab his leg to keep from getting smacked in the face. "Our lights are awesome and will bring joy and good cheer to all who see." 

Despite the obvious idiocy of putting up lights when it was snowing like this, Derek couldn't help but be a little charmed at Stiles's love for the holiday. 

"Not to mention, the complex is running a balcony decoration contest and I'll be damned if Helen fucking Henderson-Smith is going to win _again_." Stiles smacked his fist into his palm. "This year. _This year_ she's going down." 

Derek rolled his eyes so hard he was pretty sure he pulled a muscle. "Well, on the plus side, it looks like you managed to fall off a second story balcony and your only injury is a sprained ankle."

Stiles grinned. "Years of lacrosse practice are coming back to save me, even now." 

This guy was ridiculous. Derek wasn't sure why he found it so damn endearing. "On the down side, you're going to need to keep weight off it for the next couple of days, so if you want to get the lights up, you should have your boyfriend do it." 

Stiles choked and turned bright red. "Wait, _what?_ My what?"

"Boyfriend?" Derek repeated, gesturing above them to Stiles's apartment. 

"You mean _Scott?_ " Stiles sounded horrified. "Oh my God, you think I'm dating _Scott?_ "

"Yes?" Derek said cautiously. Apparently he'd miscalculated somewhere. Oh God. Was Stiles straight?

"No, dude. No, _no_." Stiles shook his head vehemently. "Scott's a very attractive dude, do _not_ get me wrong, but he's like my brother. Is my brother, actually, since our parents got married two years ago. Not to mention, he is tragically heterosexual and has a lovely girlfriend who could kill me with her pinky."

"Oh," Derek said, and before he could help himself, asked, "Are you also tragically heterosexual?" 

"Me?" Stiles looked momentarily surprised, and then a slow grin spread across his face and he linked his fingers behind his head. "Nah, dude. Bi bi bi, just like the NSYNC song. How about you?" 

Derek stood to put the first aid kit away. "Pan pan pan, just like the kitchenware aisle." 

Stiles laughed so loud the apartment filled with the sound of it. Derek had to tear his eyes away from the pale length of Stiles's throat so he could go into the kitchen and not just stand there like a lovestruck idiot. 

Stiles was single. Stiles was into guys. It couldn't hurt to ask him for coffee, right? Or maybe just to stay here a little longer, have a mug of hot chocolate, and get to know each other better. It was still snowing; going up to his apartment on a bad ankle would be a terrible idea. And Derek could be a good neighbor. 

He cleared his throat and got down another mug. "Hey, so—"

Someone pounded ferociously on his front door. "Hey! Hey, man, I need your help!" 

Shit, that didn't sound good. Derek set down the mug and ran to the door, yanking it open. 

Stiles's roommate—Scott, Derek knew his name now—almost fell into the apartment. "Oh, thank _God_ , man, I think my brother fell off our balcony while he was putting up Christmas lights but he's not out front and I can't find him and—"

"Scotty!" Stiles shouted happily from the couch. 

"Stiles?" Scott said in disbelief, craning his neck around Derek. "Stiles! Oh my God, are you okay?" 

Derek stepped aside, letting Scott barrel into his apartment. "I assume this is the droid you're looking for?" 

Stiles's eyes lit up. "Oh my God, did you just make a Star Wars reference?" 

Derek shrugged and smiled. 

Scott crouched next to him and started poking at his leg in much the same way Derek had. Stiles made a face and tried to bat his hands away. "I'm fine, _I'm fine_ , nothing's broken."

Scott didn't look happy. "Well, you're going to have Mom take a look at you tomorrow, just to be sure."

Stiles sighed exaggeratedly. " _Fine_. If I have to." 

With Scott's sudden appearance, it suddenly felt awkward to ask Stiles to stay longer. Derek quenched his disappointment. "Well, since he's not hurt beyond his ankle, between the two of us we can probably get him back up to your apartment." 

"Oh, that's great of you, man, but I can handle—" 

Stiles smacked Scott in the chest, and Scott yelped and glared at him. Stiles glared right back.

"I mean, yes, I could use your help in getting my brother back up the stairs," Scott finished, and then turned to Stiles. "Happy?" 

Stiles grinned. "Ecstatic." 

Derek rolled his eyes. They were ridiculous. 

He got Stiles's things out of his coat closet, and he and Scott helped Stiles get them on. Derek couldn't help but notice Stiles was leaning on him for "support" a bit more than he'd needed to previously. 

He fought down the surge of satisfaction he got from that. 

It wasn't a long journey up the stairs to the second story, but the snow was still coming down and the steps were getting slippery. Fortunately, the three of them made it back up to Scott and Stiles's apartment without any incidents. 

"So, Derek." Stiles leaned against the door, arms crossed over his chest, his weight fully on his good leg. It was probably supposed to look suave, but in his puffy overcoat, it looked a little ridiculous. "I feel I should thank you for all your help. Maybe you could come in for coffee?" 

Back in the apartment, Scott thudded his head against the wall. "Oh my God."

Derek stifled a laugh. "How about you go rest your foot, and we go get a cup of coffee later this week? My treat." 

The suave persona fell, and Stiles straightened, eyes wide. "Really?" 

Derek nodded. "And if you ask _really_ nicely, I might be persuaded to help finish putting up your Christmas lights. _After_ it stops snowing."

If Stiles had looked excited about the coffee, it was nothing compared to the way his face lit up at that. "Oh my God, would you? That would be awesome!" 

Derek shrugged, trying to hide how pleased he was. "Well, we've got to give Helen Henderson-Smith a run for her money, don't we?" 

Stiles threw back his head and laughed, and it was beautiful. "Damn right we do. Oh my God, you're the best, dude." 

Derek shoved his hands in his pockets and headed back downstairs. "Rest your ankle!" 

"I promise!" came the reply, followed by, "Scotty, I have a _date!_ " just before the door slammed shut. 

The warmth spreading through Derek's chest had nothing to do with his coat and gloves.

***

Helen Henderson-Smith took home first prize again for her recreation of the end of the Peanuts Christmas Special. Stiles looked furious until Derek leaned in and offered to "buy buy buy" him dinner to make up for it. 

Really, getting a boyfriend was an excellent consolation prize.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://mad-madam-m.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mad_madam_m)!


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